Swift Actions

[Felix]

So your Wizard can keep all of his metamagic rods at home in his tower hanging up next to his pots and pans. He uses them only at spell-prep time, and not otherwise. He never runs into the problem, especially if he's an NPC, of having his precious rods taken from him alive, or looted from his corpse before his clone can reanimate and fetch his stuff. At least, not when he's out adventuring. The PCs won't be rewarded with looting a metamagic rod when they defeat a wizard who enhanced his spells with one, until they loot his warded keep.

As you like, I guess...

Frankly I prefer the idea that rods enhance the spell the same way that some planes affect spellcasting... that they are changed upon casting, and not upon memorizing. The rods affect the spell like an angreal out of Wheel of Time. And you have to carry it with you all the time to have access to its abilities, and ware the threat of having it taken from you. But that's just me.

 

[Thanee]

No, I require the rod to be present during the spellcasting as well as during the preparation process, but that is probably more of a house rule.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Frankly I prefer the idea that rods enhance the spell the same way that some planes affect spellcasting... that they are changed upon casting, and not upon memorizing. The rods affect the spell like an angreal out of Wheel of Time. And you have to carry it with you all the time to have access to its abilities, and ware the threat of having it taken from you. But that's just me.

From a style aspect, that is certainly better, but then the rules would have to be fair and not biased towards Wizards (that is, Sorcerers should not suffer a casting time increase *and* get ~50% more uses per day), as they are if you just use them as is, but allow Wizards to apply them spontaneously.

Bye
Thanee

 

[jasin]

From a style aspect, that is certainly better, but then the rules would have to be fair and not biased towards Wizards (that is, Sorcerers should not suffer a casting time increase *and* get ~50% more uses per day), as they are if you just use them as is, but allow Wizards to apply them spontaneously.

I'm not sure about more uses per day. After all, a sorcerer doesn't get more uses from a staff or a wand either.

Of course, you could argue that staves and wands are also biased towards wizards (since it's more of a boost to get the 50 fireballs in the staff when you on your own have 3 than when you have 6).

But I agree about the casting time... so what about allowing wizards to use the rods without preparation and sorcerers without increasing their casting time? You seemed to imply that would make them overpowered...?

 

[jasin]

From a style aspect, that is certainly better, but then the rules would have to be fair and not biased towards Wizards (that is, Sorcerers should not suffer a casting time increase *and* get ~50% more uses per day), as they are if you just use them as is, but allow Wizards to apply them spontaneously.

I'm not sure about more uses per day. After all, a sorcerer doesn't get more uses from a staff or a wand either.

Of course, you could argue that staves and wands are also biased towards wizards (since it's more of a boost to get the 50 fireballs in the staff when you on your own have 3 than when you have 6).

But I agree about the casting time... so what about allowing wizards to use the rods without preparation and sorcerers without increasing their casting time? You seemed to imply that would make them overpowered...? But perhaps this by itself biases to rods towards wizards: getting spontaneously applied metamagic is better than getting non-casting-time-increased metamagic.

 

[Thanee]

I'm not sure about more uses per day. After all, a sorcerer doesn't get more uses from a staff or a wand either.

"no preparation" is a much higher bonus than "no casting time increase", because it includes part of the ability of spontaneous casting, which Sorcerers pay a very steep price for (metamagic feats are better for Sorcerers, an item, which confers metamagic should also follow this trend).

That's why I think it should give an additional bonus to Sorcerers to compensate.

But I agree about the casting time... so what about allowing wizards to use the rods without preparation and sorcerers without increasing their casting time? You seemed to imply that would make them overpowered...?

Well, they are arguably overpowered already, because they can be used on your highest spell levels, so what would making them better lead to?

If going for a house rule, the first thing I'd do is, to only allow them to be applied to spells, which you could normally apply the metamagic feat to (including the level increase), that is max spell level of your highest spell level minus the metamagic feat's usual spell level increase.

Then it would probably be more reasonable to allow spontaneous use for everyone (no preparation time, no casting time increase).

Bye
Thanee

 

[ThirdWizard]

That's very interesting. I never knew that.